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<title>Dean Winchester, Unlicensed Therapist and Rodeo Clown by AriadneBeckett (Jet44)</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27485893">Dean Winchester, Unlicensed Therapist and Rodeo Clown</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jet44/pseuds/AriadneBeckett'>AriadneBeckett (Jet44)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Armchair Therapy, Brotherly Affection, Brotherly Bonding, Clowns, Complete, Dean Winchester Whump, Excited Dean Winchester, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Grumpy Sam Winchester, Humor, One Shot, POV Sam Winchester, Protective Dean Winchester, Rodeo Competitions, Sam Winchester Has a Fear of Clowns, Scared Sam Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 20:48:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,791</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27485893</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jet44/pseuds/AriadneBeckett</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean decides Sam needs exposure therapy to fix his clown phobia. Dean really shouldn't be a therapist. But he also shouldn't try to be a rodeo clown, and guess what: he's not as terrible at either as one might think.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dean Winchester &amp; Sam Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>41</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Dean Winchester, Unlicensed Therapist and Rodeo Clown</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I got us backstage!” Dean bounced in place and swept his cheap straw cowboy hat from his head, giving it a gleeful twirl.</p><p>“Backstage at a bullfight?” asked Sam, running his eyes over an arena filled with dirt and surrounded by metal fencing and stadium seating. A teeming mass of cowboy hats, flag bandanna scarves, and belt buckles was assembling itself in the stands. “….Yay?”</p><p>“Bull ride, not bull fight.”</p><p>“What’s the difference?” asked Sam. He actually did know the difference, but it was fun to poke at Dean to drive home the point of exactly how unenthusiastic he was about this activity.</p><p>“Bullfighting is just straight-up cruelty to animals,” said Dean. “Bull riding is pretty much cruelty to humans, but like - fun.”</p><p>“It’s like a Roman coliseum with rednecks,” said Sam. What was it with Dean and his cowboy fetish? “By backstage, do you mean behind the bull… cage things?”</p><p>There were three large, open-ended barrels in the dirt arena, not far from a row of gated pens obviously ready to discharge bucking bulls. Speaking of bulls, there was one in one of the pens, looking very large and very annoyed while it was being swarmed with humans. The late afternoon sun baked the dirt and reflected off the metal benches. He was still struggling to find anything enjoyable about this when everyone stood for the national anthem. </p><p>“Yep! I get to help the riders mount!” said Dean, tilting his chin up in pride. The joyful twinkle in his eyes could give Christmas lights a run for their money, so Sam sighed and returned Dean’s radiant smile. </p><p>He followed Dean down the stairs of the stands until they came to a volunteer blocking access to the corridor leading to the bull pens. The volunteer greeted Dean with a smile, and Sam’s gut locked up. He registered the cause a split second later. </p><p>Two clowns had just vaulted into the arena and were bowing at the crowd, and now Sam’s throat was tight. He pointed at the nearest bench. “You go ‘head. I’lljustwaitherethanks.”</p><p>Rodeo clowns. He’d heard the term, but it’d stupidly never occurred to him that there would be clowns at <em>their</em> rodeo. </p><p>“C’mon, Sammy!” </p><p>Dean caught the direction of his gaze, spotted the clowns, and rolled his eyes with a sigh. “Do you even know what rodeo clowns do?”</p><p>“Eat people?”</p><p>“When the rider gets bucked off, they’re on the ground in the arena with a bull who might want to gore them, or just trample them. The clowns distract the bull and tease it away from the rider. When the bull charges them, they take cover behind or inside one of the barrels, or climb the fence. It’s the most dangerous job in the rodeo. They’re literally risking their lives to protect the rider.”</p><p>There was almost reverence in Dean’s voice, and that glow calmed Sam’s heart slightly. As long as he kept his gaze averted. </p><p>“Okay. Go - prepare the gladiators or whatever you said you were doing. I’ll wait here.”</p><p>Clowns.  </p><p>Seriously, clowns? Why couldn’t the rodeo heroes just wear like - red capes or something? A quick glance out of the corner of one eye informed him there were indeed red capes, and it didn’t help. At all.</p><p>Dean was straddling a metal fence, helping arrange a rider on a surprisingly calm bull, and when he caught Sam watching, responded with an enthusiastic thumbs up.</p><p>“I hate you!” yelled Sam.</p><p>“Don’t be jealous,” Dean shouted back. Sam had to marvel at how he looked like he genuinely knew what he was doing, when he’d likely never so much as touched a bull in his life.</p><p>The bull exploded from its chute, and within seconds the hapless rider was flung to the ground. He rolled and was on his feet in an instant, the clown waving its cape and hat to distract the bull while the rider scrambled to the fence. The bull charged the clown, enraged, and the clown dove into the barrel a mere second before the bull crashed into it and sent it flying.</p><p>Sam applauded the bull.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Dean kept one eye on Sam, sitting with legs clenched tight, his elbows tucked close, his brow furrowed while he followed every move the two rodeo clowns made.</p><p>It was not a good day to be a rodeo clown. It was easy to track Sam’s mood improving as he watched clowns being chased up fences and slammed around in barrels.</p><p>The guys were pure, grade-A badasses in clown noses, protecting “their” riders with a sort of courage and skill that was downright awesome. </p><p>“Yo, Dean!” </p><p>“Sorry,” said Dean, shifting his gaze from the clown leaning on the fence, catching his breath between bulls. He helped steady the mounting rider as he got into position, making sure the cowboy couldn’t accidentally slip between the bull and the pen, or under its hooves. </p><p>Really, the whole thing reminded him of hunting, in terms of sheer danger and absorbing blows, but if it was a competition sport where the monsters were given extra pampering before taking on the hunters in front of an audience. </p><p>Eight seconds later, Sam actually grinned when two clowns ran for their lives and flung themselves up and over the fence with an angry bull on their asses. It was a good day.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“I hate you,” said Sam, glaring up at a sweaty but blissfully content Dean. It was a break in the program, and a drill team of horseback riders carrying flags was galloping in elaborate loops around the arena to the blaring of a song about God’s country and being baptized in moonshine. The only good thing about it was that the clowns were on break.</p><p>“You know you love it!”</p><p>“I really don’t,” muttered Sam. “Seriously, you have me worrying about the well-being of clowns while I hope the bull gets them. I don’t like interior conflict.”</p><p>“It’s clown exposure therapy,” said Dean.</p><p>“How do you even know the term ‘exposure therapy’ and how did you manage to do it so horribly wrong?”</p><p>Dean swatted him on the shoulder with a grin, and Sam noticed he’d managed to acquire a belt buckle with a bull on it. Seriously. It was a freaking fetish. A hot, dusty, dangerous, noisy, miserable fetish with people screaming -</p><p>He and Dean registered the screams at the same instant, heads snapping up and scanning the arena. The drill team galloped with new urgency towards a gate being held open for them by a clown, at the opposite end of the arena from the bull pens. One of the bull pen gates wavered on broken hinges, and a brindle-colored bull the size of a - well, a bull charged hot on the heels of the riders.</p><p>The last horse in line decided to shed weight to escape, and with one resounding buck threw its tiny star-spangled female rider to the dirt directly into the path of the bull. Before Sam could blink, Dean was up and over the fence, running towards the bull, waving that absurd hat. </p><p>“Come at me, you son of a bitch!” yelled Dean, swatting two tons of muscle with his hat, stopping it just short of the fallen rider. Then he ran for his life towards the closest barrel, taking advantage of the split seconds he gained as the thundering animal changed direction to chase him. </p><p>Dean dove head-first into the barrel in the nick of time before the bull sent it, and him, flying. Sam climbed the fence and perched there, trying to figure out exactly how to help while the bull used his brother in a barrel as the bull equivalent of a chew toy. He winced down deep in his gut with each shattering impact, imagining Dean crumpled up in there trying to stay inside and getting thrown against the sides with shocking force.</p><p>Sam drew his gun, taking aim and wondering how much rodeo bulls sold for and whether a handgun would do anything more than piss it off. The crowd entirely surrounded both long sides of the arena, and there were very few angles at which he could even fire without the crowd on the opposite side being his backdrop. The thing to do was probably to drop into the arena and run into a position where he could fire safely, and then climb for his life when it charged him. He didn’t have a hat or a barrel, so he couldn’t just copy Dean and do the clown thing.</p><p>Two horses galloped into the arena as he was poised to swing down, both ridden by clowns. One of the clowns headed off the bull, getting between it and the barrel, chasing alongside it as it tore up the dirt under its hooves.</p><p>The second clown swung sideways in the saddle, leaning down in an impossible on-the-run acrobatic move and snatching Dean’s outstretched hand in his. In one fluid motion, the clown yanked Dean out of the barrel and up onto the horse behind him. </p><p>Dean clung to the clown with one arm and with the other, pumped his fist at Sam as they galloped past him on the way out of the arena. “Who-hooooo!”</p><p>Sam met them both outside the arena, and tackled Dean in a fierce hug of relief. His brother was bleeding from the forehead and minus his absurd hat, but seemed to be otherwise in one piece. </p><p>“Don’t you mean yeehaw?” teased Sam. “Or do you have to have your hat to be eligible for that one?”</p><p>The clown who had rescued Dean was standing nearby, catching his breath and patting his horse’s neck. He suddenly looked very much like a human who happened to be wearing goofy clothing and makeup. A very brave, skilled human who had saved his brother. </p><p>On impulse, Sam stuck out his hand. “Thank you.”</p><p>He didn’t even shudder when the guy gave him an exhausted grin and returned the handshake. </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>They reached the Impala, parked in the back half of the lot, just as the sun fell. </p><p>“Dean?”</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>“Don’t ever become a therapist.”</p><p>Dean grinned. “You shook hands with a clown. I win.”</p><p>“Since when was this a competition - you know what, never mind. Just - no more rodeos.”</p><p>“You’re welcome.”</p><p>Sam shoved him with a glare and a certain amount of care, because the guy had basically been attacked by a bull. </p><p>“Ow,” whined Dean, looking like he was actually in pain. “Those things hit like a car wreck.”</p><p>“Serves you right for clowning around.”</p><p>Dean’s eyes widened, and his face broke into the biggest grin imaginable. “Did Sam Winchester just make a clown pun?”</p><p>“Shut up or I’ll shove you again,” said Sam, returning the grin and opening his door.</p><p> </p>
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